Pantheon is the default desktop environment originally created for the elementary OS distribution. It is written from scratch using Vala and the GTK3 toolkit. With regards to usability and appearance, the desktop has some similarities with GNOME Shell and Mac OS X.

Installation

Pantheon is split into several packages which are available in the AUR. To get a minimal desktop interface, you may start by installing pantheon-session-bzrAUR. This will pull the following core components:

Note: This repository only contains some stable packages atm. A bug in devtools makes it impossible to build bzr packages. Patch has already been submitted, but since the build server cannot be patched, we need to wait for the next devtools release.

Github repository

You will need to build at least bamf from there because the AUR package is out of date. Some other packages which do not belong to me can be found in the AUR, you should build those packages from the GitHub repo if available as they are packaged differently.

Packages based on older evolution-data-server

Wallpaper drawer

The pantheon wallpaper drawer, pantheon-wallpaper-bzrAUR, has been deprecated in favor of the GNOME drawer. This used to be handled by nautilus, but since GNOME 3.8 it is handled directly by gnome-shell, which means we can't have GNOME drawing the wallpaper anymore.

Somehow, we can't use nitrogen either because gala seems to paint a black background all over it (kill gala and the wallpaper appears). Please keep using the deprecated drawer until a solution is found.

Note: There is a branch of gala which supports mutter 3.8. This branch enables gala to draw the wallpaper specified by the GNOME gsettings key directly. You can install gala-mutter38-bzrAUR from the AUR to try it out.

Note: Either use the bzr version of cerbere or add 'gala' to the monitored processes for this to work.

Autostart applications

Pantheon, when launched via ~/.xinitrc, does not support XDG autostart. However, there are 2 other ways to achieve this for applications which do not provide a systemd unit:

You may add any program to your ~/.xinitrc, preferably right between the cerbere and gala lines. This is the better choice for one-shot programs.

Or you may edit the org.pantheon.cerbere.monitored-processes key using dconf-editor and add the programs of your choice. This method is best for applications which keep running in the background.

Note: Keep in mind that applications started via cerbere cannot be terminated, they will keep respawning.

Configuration

Configuring Pantheon is done via switchboard-bzrAUR and its plugs, some of which are available in the AUR, but close to none work as intended for the moment. Instead, most pantheon settings can be altered via dconf, they are located in the org.pantheon key. Use dconf-editor for easy editing.